The inspired moment may sometimes be described as a kind of hallucinatory state of mind: one half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates. The half that listens has better look the other way, had better simulate a half attention only, for the half that dictates is easily disgruntled and avenges itself for too close inspection by fading entirely away.

Aaron Copland

Categorized in : Mind Listening Personality

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.

Aaron Copland

music would-be time

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."

Aaron Copland

music would-be art

Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.

Aaron Copland

stress music wisdom

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

Aaron Copland

moments spirit may

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

Aaron Copland

music giving long

This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”

Aaron Copland

jazz music states

You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

Aaron Copland

live-for-today alive feelings

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

Aaron Copland

cows symphony listening

There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.

Aaron Copland

distance music way

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

Aaron Copland

knows want play

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

Aaron Copland

satisfied not-happy useless

Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.

Aaron Copland

born musical simple

For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.

Aaron Copland

important sound forever

A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.

Aaron Copland

symphony men long

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

Aaron Copland

one-love assuming music-love

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

Aaron Copland

powerful reading book

Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: "Every day!"

Aaron Copland

inspiration answers

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

Aaron Copland

self inspirational art

I don't compose. I assemble materials.

Aaron Copland

materials

I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

Aaron Copland

adore waste extravagance